Adediran Ademiju-Bepo

Since the adoption of the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System, IPPIS, in Nigeria by the Umaru Yar’adua administration in 2007, the federal government believes it has been doing things right in its own eyes. From my investigation, IPPIS was first implemented in April of that year to pay workers their wages for the month. It was aimed at improving the payroll and personnel operations in the various MDAs, that is Ministries, Departments and Agencies of the civil service, by way of complying with modern electronic practices. However, its introduction has sparked and aroused a lot controversies, and all these have fallen on the deaf ears of government, simply because it believes it is right.

I am convinced that the government is right and has been right all along in its implementation of IPPIS. Has the project not spanned a period of thirteen, 13, years now, under the auspices of a consortium of consultants, with the name, ‘Human Manager’? Has the change from manual to electronic methods of salaries payment not raised a lot of questions, which government has answered? Yes, answered with silence, pregnant silence. A publication of the IT Department, Federal Ministry of Information and Communications, Digital Times, Volume 2, Number 2 of October 2007, for instance, raised questions like: ‘What is the essence of changing from manual to electronic medium? Will this method work? What is wrong with the old method of manual operations?

Government has been consistently consistent. If the saying that: ‘Consistency is harder when no one is clapping for you. You must clap for yourself during those times, you should always be your biggest fan’ is anything to go by, then I align with government and IPPIS. The sound of clapping else hear from cabinet ministers and other officials of government is not yet deafening to warrant the current industrial action by the academic staff union of universities. ASUU was just being emotional because students, parents and guardians, the public and the government are not clapping for it. How can these categories of stakeholders in the enterprise of education clap for ASUU when the union is only consistent in calling their attention to the endemic rot in the system that required and still requires urgent state of emergency? Why should ASUU be the only labour union that still standing, when government stands issues on their head? Why should ASUU be opposed to the implementation of IPPIS in federal universities owned by the federal unitary government

Most wrong personal information of captured workers on the IPPIS are yet to be identified and corrected in many MDAs. Even the universities staff who were cajoled and bamboozled into supplying their bio data for thirty pieces of silver, under the impression that ASUU was being unpatriotic. How can anyone in his or her right faculties say government is not right? The Office of the Auditor General of the Federation was recently invited by the National Assembly to come and explain and or defend its discovery of an alleged N3.2m fraud in the IPPIS Office. Government has not issued any statements on this. And the questions linger. With silence as the plainly palpable answer.

The minister of labour and productivity, Emeka Chris Ngige, was (mis) quoted recently as having said that the President who had directed the payment of withheld salaries of striking ASUU members was magnanimous. Yet he and his Finance counterpart were powerful enough to truncate the presidential directive. They are right, because they, like their colleague who allegedly said so, have not joined politics to solve the problems of Nigeria not to talk of the problems and rot ASUU has brought to the front burner. In the same vein that both of them are hellbent on dealing with ASUU members with hunger, so shall nothing good come out of their generations, because they are voices of government and they are right.

The unions in the health sector are just bidding their time before exploding, over the handling and management of the COVID-19 pandemic, which some unpatriotic critics have re-codenamed COVID-419? Like the IPPIS, with its attendant questions and problems, COVID-19 responses by the government has been shrouded in controversies since the first case was discovered on February 27, 2020. Whether the government accepts or not, many critics of its perspective on the handling of Coronavirus at present are impressed because they are from the opposition camp. But it has forgotten so soon that when it was still in opposition, the present party in government never impressed by anything done by the government of the day. Already, crisis is brewing within the unions in the health sector over the enhanced Coronavirus hazard and inducement allowances just announced by government. The swine flu in government has assumed an unprecedented dimension. That is symbolic in the way ministers and the politicians in government have become enemies of their constituents and their own conscience. But I think they are right, because only their interests matter.

Daily figures of those infected by the Corona Virus are a matter of the less you look, the more you see. It is now abracadabra. Even suspected or confirmed cases are strewn around and moved around states as if the data capturing machines or devices use faulty human brains. Or are the devices also infected by the virus? As at the last count while writing this, the total number of confirmed cases stood at over 5000. Yet a particular index case in a state was all over the place threatening fire and fury. Government of that state was still clawing to the claim of being right about her diagnosis and prognosis. It made me wonder: can the governed EVER be right? When only the government is right? Information dissemination on national networks are simply appalling. Nigerians do not even appear convinced there is Corona Virus in the country. Confusion jokes at us. Many involved in palliative distribution are allegedly diverting the items. Monies are allegedly ending up in private pockets. In preparation for the next round of election year which may not come, courtesy of the PANDEMIC.

Government now wants ASUU to suspend the strike before negotiations resume with its leaders. No resolution was offered for the convulsions in the payments haphazardly made for February and March. It is right, after all. The same teething symptoms thrown up at the inception of the IPPIS still subsist. Thirteen years on. But government is still right, as always. Take for instance, the hues and cries over the expensive presidential system of government adopted since 1979. For forty-one years, we have experimented with a system that has left the citizenry pauperize and pummeled. We are crying for a return to the regional parliamentary system, yet government is right by not listening. Our policy makers failed to give us a PSHEE: Personal, Social, Health, and Economic Education – approach to living and governance. We are saddled with prowler representatives at all the three tiers of government. Interested in grabbing and grabbing and grabbing. Only the approach to keep us begging till crumbs are dropped onto our outstretched plates subsists.

The pandemic in the education sector predated the global health emergency of COVID-19. We have cried our voices hoarse over the endemic rot. But government is right by denying us listening ears. After all, it only listens to the IMF and the World Bank, its foreign paymasters that pontificate on IPPIS. Now, a third one has probably reared its not-too-beautiful head: China became the third paymaster for this government. And that reminds me that COVID originated from Wuhan in China. Perhaps IPPIS has a link with China as well, no apology to its viral implications. Deductions that are fatal, extraneous dues to which we did not subscribe. Like IPPIS, like COVID-19. Now, our salaries need to wear face masks. If we must be right.

Let me end with a string of 7 Wills: Will the controversies surrounding the introduction of IPPIS in the university system diminish? Will the consultants stop drawing money from each enrollee in the name of renewal of registration monthly? Will Nigerians turn around to be convinced about the ravaging unseen enemy? Will there be transparency in the COVID-19 donations received and deployment of such? Will the University system ever be the same again? Will government always be right? Will the Will of the people prevail?

Adediran Ademiju-Bepo PhD, is an Author, an Associate Professor of Theatre, Film and Communication for Development Studies, and also a former Acting Chairman of ASUU, University of Jos, Nigeria.

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Bepo writes: LIke IPPIS, Like COVID-19 :Government is right